The Problem with Shortcuts
by Kathryn Shadow
Summary: '"Your breath smells like a distillery fell onto an apple orchard," he says primly.' Amuto, set for several very obvious reasons years after the end of the story.


So I was wandering around, looking at kinkmemes because dear Lord so many of the prompts are terrifying and hilarious, and ended up stumbling across an unfilled prompt that I actually kind of liked. So here I am.

Also, I guess this is me letting you know that I'm still alive. XD Hi, guys.

-BAD WOLF-

Amu hasn't stopped giggling since they left the bar. Ikuto tugs gently on her hand and wonders how on Earth she's managed to breathe through all the laughter. She stumbles, bumping into his back.

"If you pass out, I'm not carrying you," he warns. But he's smirking just a little and he knows it's a lie before he even finishes speaking.

The woman (odd to think of her as one; she's barely any taller now than she was when they met) makes a tiny, mock-hurt noise. "Meanie. Meanie cat." A pause. "I'm not even that drunk."

Okay, that's probably true. Ikuto managed to be there the first time she had drunk at all; she was the lightweight to end all lightweights and the entire planet knew it.

Didn't mean he couldn't give her shit about it.

"Your breath smells like a distillery fell onto an apple orchard," he says primly.

_"Hey!"_ Amu yanks the hand he's holding with a surprising amount of strength. The alleyway he's taking to her home is just a little too small for acrobatics and his elbow smashes into the brick as he is spun to face her.

She's small and flushed, her pink hair pinned up in careful disarray, and the kittenish anger written on her face is adorable enough to keep his eyes from wandering.

…Mostly.

She smirks and his cheeks prickle with heat. He's been very, _very _good about pretending that she's not absolutely, devastatingly attractive to him, but damn it all she's four inches away and he can see through her black shirt and he's been trying to figure out what colour the brassiere underneath is and—

"What?" he replies, gaze steady on hers, hands in his pockets to conceal their shaking.

"Take that back." She plants her hands on her hips and glares at him.

"No."

"Take it back!" she whines, giving his shoulder a plaintive shove. His breath hitches at even that contact and he needs to get her in bed—

_…_

—in her own bed, asleep, on her own, because she is too damn sexy right now and it's kind of annoying him.

"No." Ikuto bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

"You can't even smell my breath!" Amu bounces on her toes angrily. She narrows her eyes, a fragment of a warning that he doesn't heed.

Her hands are cold on his shoulders and she stretches up as tall as she can go and it's not tall enough and he's just startled enough by being touched at all that he doesn't think to resist when her fingers thread through his hair, yank his head down closer to her level, and what is she doing why does she need him there and Ikuto can feel her father worrying back in his living room and—

Delicately, she purses her lips, patchy-shiny from her worn-off lip gloss, and she smells like rain and sunlight and warm blankets, and there is a breathless moment and she exhales and he doesn't understand and he swallows and tries not to want to pin her to the wall and lick the rest of the gloss from her perfect little mouth.

She nuzzles his face, pressing a tiny kiss to his cheek. "See?" she whispers, and he wants her, he _wants _her…

Wicked little teeth scrape his earlobe and he yelps, jerking sideways in surprise, a little prickle of heat running from his scalp straight to… well, parts that are not his scalp.

"Amu," he says, and he doesn't know if it's a plea or a request or a demand. Especially doesn't know what he's pleading _for._

(He needs to get her back home. Her dad will worry Ami will get the wrong idea her mother—)

"It's okay," she replies, her eyes bright and strangely focussed in the half-light. "I want it too."

And she kisses him.

Ikuto tries, honestly tries, to think of a way to describe it. If he had a description, he thinks, maybe he could hold onto it after it stopped, but the sensation of her lips on his is scorching itself into his nerves and on second thought he doesn't think he could forget this if he wanted to.

Her hair is soft under his fingertips and he exhales a tiny breath into her half-open mouth, dares to flick his tongue across her lower lip, traps it between his to nip at the warm flesh, and she gives a tiny little moan and he angles his hips backwards as quickly as he can so he can at least pretend to be gentlemanly about all of this.

Amu leans back, grinning, predatory, her eyes glittering with mischief, and he knows that he was too late. Desperate, he clears his throat, makes a move to leave, but her hand grazes over the bulge in his trousers and rational thought stumbles into a corner to die.

"Pervert cat," she whispers, rubbing him against her palm, long smooth strokes that send tremors through his bones.

"You're one to talk," Ikuto manages to say.

She pauses. Smiles. "I know."

She unbuttons his jeans.


End file.
